Imagine this: you're a Man Utd or a Liverpool fan watching the former play Arsenal live.
(I couldn't do this because of the time difference and poverty: but the replay was fascinating.)
Every second, your heart is in your mouth.
Just one goal from Arsenal could potentially ruin a whole season of 38 games for MU and leave open a sliver of hope for L'pool.
Defeat snatched from the jaws of victory ... usw.
A 38-game season on the line: altered by a fluke goal, a goal-keeping error, the ref giving a stupid penalty ... a myriad other possibilities.
And there are a lot of seconds in 90 minutes.
(Course Arsenal fans probably didn't even bother to travel -- which may be the POV of the "'soccer'-is boring" brigade -- if so, I pity you all.)
The whole thing has been likened to "bread and circuses".
If it's like a Roman sport, it's more like Lions vs Christists -- except with Christ himself representing the latter.
One goal = death to the bastard!
And that'd be the end of the whole sorry story.
In the end, however, the narrative turns out such that he (He?) survived; wasn't really crucified.
And so the whole sorry story -- in this case the story Manchester United Worship -- continues.
That has to be much more interesting than a result like this, say:
Essendon 4.2 6.7 12.10 17.14 (116)I mean, even a 116/72 result -- let alone the detail -- is something from the Planet Zog.
Hawthorn 1.8 6.8 9.11 10.12 (72)
Then we get to basketball: one team has the ball, runs down the incredibly short court full of incredibly tall people, scores; then the other team does the same -- more or less and such that the slightly "more" wins.
Like:
Orlando 22 23 16 22 (83)Even thinking about it makes me want to bet on cockroach races.
Boston 25 21 16 13 (75)
